It may be hard to believe we will ever colonise Mars but NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge has tasked contenders with designing homes for humans to live in on the Red Planet. Here we look at the Mars X-Home concepts from New York company Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+).
The female-led team at SEArch+ says the Mars X-House, which takes various forms, “takes advantage of the unique capabilities of 3D printing to provide maximum radiation protection from galactic cosmic rays, while celebrating human life through vital connections to natural light and the Martian landscape beyond”.
The Mars X-House is “autonomously constructed using indigenous Martian materials to form a pioneering and durable habitat supporting future human missions to Mars”. Looking like an abode from Star Wars, one possibility is shown below…
Light is transmitted through transparent, CO2-inflated window pockets and greenhouses, and viewing apertures will give residents a glimpse of the world outside. Inside, are two pressurised habitation areas for humans to live in, encased by “regolith shells” made from loose matter on top of the bedrock of Mars.
Partnering with additive manufacturing experts Apis Cor, which is already working on 3D-printed buildings on Earth, the idea is to send machinery (excavators and printers) to Mars where it will build the structures robotically, so they are there waiting for astronauts when they arrive.
SEArch+ says: “Mars X-House will enable humans to not only live but thrive above the Martian horizon.”
- Phase 1, (completed) the Design Competition required teams to submit architectural renderings and was completed in 2015. (US$50,000 prize)
- Phase 2, (completed) the Structural Member Competition, focused on material technologies, requiring teams to create structural components. It was completed in 2017. (US$1.1 million prize)
- Phase 3 (current), the On-Site Habitat Competition, comprises five levels that test teams’ ability to advance technology to autonomously construct a habitat and will culminate in a head-to-head habitat print in April 2019. (US$2 million prize)